WHAT a day, or rather night, is this, my countrymen! How
intolerable the burden that crushes us! What! Abraham Lincoln dead?
The idol of his countrymen, the true, the pure, the good, the loving,
the heroic, the great-souled father of his people dead, murdered, gone
away from us forevermore? O God! We cannot bear it! How can I stand
here with this great grief so fresh in my heart, and discourse to you
about it? It seems almost like sacrilege to attempt it to-day. On
another and more appropriate occasion, when my thoughts are calmer and
more orderly, I will offer my tribute to him who lies on the nation's
bier. This morning I ask you to pass from the darkened chamber of a
personal grief into a broader and serener temple, where the quivering
chords of our hearts may lose somewhat of this painful tenseness, and
where considerations of a more general and impersonal nature may raise
the soul to loftier and calmer heights. May the father of consolation
help us while we ponder those words of the Redeemer, which are
recorded in the twenty-fourth verse of the twelfth chapter of the
Gospel according to St. John:

fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone; but if
it die, it bringeth forth much fruit."

I. Thoughtless or dull must that man's spirit be which
does not feel a quickening influence in these spring days of
vegetative activity. He need not visit some great farm, or forest, in
order to be assured of the wonderful transformations going on in
nature around him. If he have but a single tree growing by his window,
or a single rose-bush, or a square foot of grass-plat in his yard, he
may discover, if he will, evidences of an activity as intense and
wonderful in its way as when a nation is engaged in the shock of
arms. Look abroad to-day on the vegetable kingdom around you. What
stupendous energies are at work, upheaving the soil, draining the
underground reservoirs of a continent, throwing the whole atmosphere
of earth into commotion, supplying the waste of animal expenditure by
vegetable growth, and carrying on that sublime paradox of compensation
in nature which preserves equilibrium by means of perturbations! But
not only are great transformations going on. Observe, also, the
intense life everywhere prevalent. All nature is
instinct with the most vigorous vitality. An exuberance of vital force
is everywhere exhibited, from the loftiest pine to the tiniest
lichen. Behold the bursting seed, the protruding shoots, the opening
leaves, the unfolding buds of spring! Whence all this abounding life?
Next autumn you will put your hand to the sickle, and

reap the golden ears. But whence will come your glorious crop? Ah! the
law of the harvest is death. "Except a kernel of wheat fall into the
ground and die, it abideth alone; but if it die, it bringeth forth
much fruit." It is because the seeds you plant in spring are dying
that your fields in autumn will be white to the harvest.

My heart is awed within me when I think
Of the great
miracle that still goes on,
In silence, round me,--the
perpetual work
Of thy creation, finished, yet renewed
Forever. * * * * *
Lo! all grow old and die; but see
again,
How on the faltering footsteps of decay
Youth
presses,--ever gay and beautiful youth
In all its beautiful
forms. These lofty trees
Wave not less proudly than their
ancestors
Moulder beneath them. * * *
Life mocks the idle hate
Of
his arch enemy Death,--yea, seats himself
Upon the tyrant's
throne,--the sepulchre,
And of the triumphs of his ghastly
foe
Makes his own nourishment.

II. The like principle holds in the animal kingdom. The life of
the body depends on the destruction of its own material. No part of an
organism or living mechanism can act without wearing away. Every
action of the organism, whether in motion that is voluntary or
involuntary, whether in emotion or volition, involves attrition, the
wasting away, the absolute loss and death of animal material. The
processes of life are at the same time the processes of death. The
condition, the law of physical life, is physical death.

This, then, is the grand law of life that prevails in the
physical world, whether vegetable or animal. Death must precede
life. Death is the source, or, rather, the means of life. The death of
the seed is the law of the harvest. "Verily, verily, I say unto you,
except a kernel of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth
alone; but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit."

Now, this multiplication of the seed through its own death
our Lord uses as a most significant parable and lesson. As in the
physical world, so in the spiritual: Death must
precede Life. Growth comes through decay; glory through disgrace;
joy through woe; peace through war; victory through defeat; life
through death.

III. Observe how this principle holds true of the Son of God
Himself. He could not, as the Son of Man, become
perfect except through suffering. In fact, this is the primary and
very particular application of the parable of the kernel of wheat
dying, as our Lord Himself set it forth. While discoursing in the
temple on the Wednesday before He died, message was brought to Him
that certain Greek proselytes were waiting in the outer court to see
Him. They were Gentiles, who had given in adhesion to some of the
tenets of Judaism. They had heard of His fame, and of the triumphal
entry which He had just made into the City of the Great fling. And now
they themselves being in Jerusalem to attend the Passover, they wished
to see the illustrious Stranger for themselves, and learn by personal
acquaintance whether He were the Saviour their

own hearts so sighed for. Deeply moved by this touching request of
these Gentile proselytes, our Lord accedes to their wish. In their
hearing he reveals, by means of this exquisite similitude we are
considering this morning, that Messiah's glory was to come through
Messiah's shame; Messiah's triumph through Messiah's defeat; Messiah's
throne through Messiah's grave. The kernel of wheat abideth alone,
unless it decay and die. It is only by decaying and dying that it adds
to itself, and brings forth fruit. Just here, men and brethren, does
this death of the kernel stand forth as a most wonderful shadow of
Christ's work. For the Son of Man died that He might rise again a
spiritual harvest of regenerate humanity. So long as Jesus remained on
earth without dying, the Divine life was confined to Himself: He abided alone. It was only when He cast off, in
dying, the earthly integument, that liberty of growth became
possible. And when, at length, the harvest time shall come, Jesus will
be found, like the kernel of corn, which, having died, has passed
through its stages, first the blade, then the ear, then the full corn
in the ear, to be no longer "alone," but to have
"brought forth much fruit." The people, whose
sins He had borne on the accursed tree, will be gathered into the
heavenly garner, as the mighty harvest of the travail of His soul. The
heavenly seed was sown in the ground, and died, that it might evolve
itself into a mighty increment, and display itself in the glorious
blossom and fruitage of redeemed humanity. Verily, as He Himself said
to the

Gentiles that sought His presence, the hour of His death was the hour
of His life; the hour of His defeat in crucifixion the hour of His
triumph in redemption.

IV. Observe, again, how this principle holds true of man in all the
deeper aspects of his nature. If the Captain of our salvation could
not be made perfect except through suffering, how can He lead forth
His many sons unto glory, unless they, too, tread in the same path of
sorrow and agony? Oh, no! It is a law just as universal and inexorable
in the kingdom of moral growth as in that of vegetable, that the
spirit, like the seed, shall die before it can live. Let no human
being think he can gather in his heavenly harvest till he has passed
through trial, disaster, and death. And, in fact, the very next words
which our Lord utters, after delivering this parable of the dying
kernel, and as if in explanation of it, are these: "He that loveth his
life shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in this world shall
keep it unto life eternal." In other words, man's spirit must undergo
a certain sort of decay and dissolution, must pass through what the
world calls ignominy and defeat, before it can be quickened into the
new life, and enter on the fruitions of a bright eternity. Glance now
at some illustrations of this principle as applied to man's spiritual
nature.

1. Look, for instance, at the prime doctrine of
Regeneration. What, in fact, is the great mystery of the New Birth but
the decease of the spirit,--the old man dying, that it may rise again
the new man and the

better? Ah! there are some of you present who know experimentally what
this parable of the dying seed means as applied to the great fact of
conversion. There was a time when you, dear child of God, died. There
was a decay of earthly hopes and prospects, of earthly devices and
methods of salvation; and such were the bitterness of your remorse,
and the depth of your penitence, and the agony of your spirit, that,
in very truth, in being born again, in being quickened by the
vitalizing energies of the Holy Ghost, you passed through what may
indeed be called the pangs of dissolution.

2. So, too, does our parable explain the meaning and the ministry
of affliction. There must be a bruising of the spirit--a lacerating,
tearing away of the tendrils that cling to earthly props--a blighting
and decay of the fondest hopes and plans--an utter abasement of pride
and self-confidence--a painful breaking down of the will--a dying
agony of spirit, before the soul can multiply its powers into any
glorious harvest. It is only when we are weak that we are strong. Oh,
think it not strange, then, my friend, that you, who have tried to
walk humbly before your God, have been called to pass through such
fiery trials. Ask that mighty oak, which has triumphantly breasted the
whirlwinds of centuries, how he became so colossal and strong; and he
will answer you, that once he was but a little acorn, lying idle on
the soil, and the heedless foot of a bounding deer tramped it beneath
the sod; and then it decayed and died, and its greatness and its

glory date from its death. Think it not strange, then, that you should
endure trial and sorrow, and die years before your body reaches the
grave; for it is the law of the spiritual harvest. No man can become
spiritually great till he has spiritually died. The only way to the heavenly crown is from the earthly
cross.

V. The same principle is applicable to nations. So far as mortal
penetration can go, God's universal method of governing is this:
Growth through decay; victory through defeat; life through death. And
nations are no exceptions. It is not possible that a nation should
achieve true greatness except through the discipline of defeat, and
the throes of a mortal agony. It is the law of growth and
establishment. There are no Christians like those who have been tried
in the fires of affliction. And there are no nations which attain such
true majesty of character as those which successfully burst through
the avenues of disaster and spiritual, heartfelt dissolution.

Here, then, in this terrific war, in the desolations of our
homesteads, in the occasional disasters and humiliations of the
battle-field, and specially in this crushing blow which fell on us
yesterday morning, do I discover evidences of the Father's
loving-kindness. For, I do not believe, what many persons seem to
imagine, that all our disasters are wholly to be traced to human
agency. Could we lift up the curtain which conceals God's plan of
guiding this nation, I believe that we should discover that He had
employed a system of providential arrests and clogs, which should
hamper and sometimes sud-

denly balk some of our best-laid schemes. I believe this, not because
our national history is an exception to God's general method of
administering human affairs, but because it is in harmony with it. The
observant reader, whether of biography or of history, must have been
impressed with the fact that God not only governs the affairs of men
and of nations, but also often advances their best interests by
confounding their wisest counsels, and suddenly tripping up their most
promising schemes. It is most unsagacious, then, to say the least of
it, to conclude that every national disaster, whether in the cabinet,
the Congress, or the field, is to be traced solely to human agency. To
do this, is to take a practically atheistic view of the great
campaign. No! God, as the Providential Disposer of incidents, can very
easily find some method by which to defeat us, and yet we be utterly
mistaken in assigning the cause of defeat. And this I believe He has
repeatedly done in our national history, specially in the conduct of
this war, our generals themselves being as much mistaken as to the
source of the defeat as we were. And, however broad in statesmanship
we may be, or energetic in purpose, or profound in strategy, or heroic
in the field, I believe that God will continue, ever and anon, to balk
suddenly, in some way for the present misunderstood by us, our most
consummate schemes, till the national heart feels at its very core
that the Lord God of Hosts is the real ruler of America, and that
President, Secretary of State, general, soldier, citizen, is strong
only as Almighty God

stoops down from His throne, and helps him to be strong. And this is
the way our God is teaching us. Our wisest thinkers are but as blind
men groping after light and an open way. And the blessed thing is that
the dear God has taken our poor, stricken, pall-clad nation into His
own hands, bringing the blind by a way that they knew not, leading
them in paths that they have not known, hedging up their way with
briers, making a wall that they should not find the paths, alluring
them into the wilderness, that He may at last speak comfortably unto
them, and open for them in the Valley of Achor a door of hope.

Glance, now, at some of the blessed fruits which the dying of the
nation has already yielded.

1. See, for instance, how the calamities of this war have tended
to reveal us unto ourselves. Prosperity is a miserable school for
self-knowledge. But adversity has a wonderful self-revealing
power. The nation understands itself a great deal better than it did
four years ago. We have not the same overweening vanity that made us
so ridiculous in the opening of this appalling struggle. Very
different is the national feeling to-day from what it was on that
eventful Sunday morning in July, 1861, when our army so recklessly and
vain-gloriously marched to the field of Bull Run, and almost every
paper in the North positively predicted an easy victory, which should
decide beyond cavil or peradventure, the issue of the war. We
understand ourselves better now. We are more humble. We feel more

keenly our dependence on God for the happy issue of the
struggle. Hence, when victory perches on our banner, as when Richmond
fell and Lee surrendered, instead of rending the air with our boastful
and atheistic huzzas, as was our wont over our earlier successes, we
now instinctively gather together in reverent prayer and adoration,
and the song that swells on our lips, as was the case before
Independence Hall and in Wall Street, is the Doxology to the Father,
the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Our growing self-knowledge, learned in
the school of adversity, is gradually driving the nation nearer and
nearer to Him "from whom all blessings flow." And self-knowledge is
one of the grand elements of real greatness. The self-revealing power
of suffering is making us humbler, and, therefore, greater. For he
that humbleth himself shall be exalted. Thus does the dying seed
unfold into the golden harvest.

2. Another blessed fruit of this desolating war, and specially of
the awful tragedy which is ensanguining its final act, is, that it has
thrown us out of the benumbing routine of stiffening habits and
tendencies, thus limbering us afresh to the manifold purposes of
Divine Providence. We need, specially as a young, growing nation,
still in its formative stage, to be every little while powerfully
agitated, lest we become paralyzed through sheer monotony of action
and sentiment. Uninterrupted prosperity produces the same effect on
nations that it does on individuals; it tends to stunt the growth,
weaken the capacity, debase the nobility. Of all calami-

ties, considered as affecting those who have capacity for growth,
nothing is more fatal than simple stagnation. It is a great blessing
to be convulsed and dislodged, whenever our wheels have worn so deep
as to preclude liberty of diversion. God's law for powers is progress;
and progress can take place only at the cost of convulsions and
throes. Every new crystallization implies a previous commotion and
effervescence. Better for the human spirit all the commotions of
change than the numb palsies of monotony.

Better men should perish, one by one,
Than that earth
should stand at gaze, like Joshua's moon in Ajalon!
Through the
shadow of the globe we sweep into the younger day:
Better fifty
years of Europe than a cycle of Cathay!

But aside from its being essential to progress, it is an admirable
thing to have the national heart ever and anon profoundly stirred; for
it is thus made sensitive to the quickening and plastic influences of
the Spirit of God. Calamities tend to make the human spirit flexible,
limbering and adjusting it to the movements of the Divine. Surveyed
from this point of view, the arousal of the national sensibility is of
inestimable value. It is good, and I say it in the presence of these
sad, funereal emblems, that a great tide of pathos should ever and
anon sweep over a people. In this view, the desolations and
bereavements of this war, and, specially the awful calamity before
which the nation now stands aghast, are, under God's providence, a
perturbing, loosening force, knocking away the bolts that imprisoned
the soul, and

letting into its opened chambers and corridors the winnowing,
gladdening gales of the Spirit. Accordingly, I expect that, when the
immediate, turbulent excitements of this assassination and of the war,
as a whole, are over, a profound religious awakening will pervade the
country. I confidently look for greater triumphs of Messiah than those
which were won after the terrible financial commotions of 1857. The
national heart has been touched and laid bare by the finger of
Almighty God, and the lacerated organism will be sensitive to the
Divine Breath. Brethren in Jesus! This is your hour with God! Be ye
princes with Him, and prevail!

3. Still another fruit of this devastating scourge, is the
development of the nation's true nobility. Never does a man know the
force or grandeur that is in him, till some mighty calamity or passion
has revealed his soul. Viewed in this light, war, terrible scourge as
it is, has its gains as well as its losses. Oh, no! The nations cannot
live, much less grow, without the severe, but quickening and unfolding
discipline of this terrible thing. The nation's heart must die before
it can blossom in beauty, or multiply its powers in harvest. And what
a harvest of spiritual magnificence has the national suffering and
death already yielded! What outbursts of generosity have there been!
What floods of sacred, lofty sensibility have surged over the land!
What splendors of heroism have lighted up the firmament, grandly
illustrating (may I reverently say?) Jehovah's sublime law of
vicarious suffering! Even the seed dies

vicariously in order to the harvest. What a magnificent hecatomb has
been the nation's offering, not by compulsion, not in superstition,
but in solemn, rational, heroic joy! This mighty army, not of
conscripts, but to so very large extent, of volunteers, has not only
offered itself; it has been silently offered by countless hidden
hearts quite as heroic; by wives, mothers, sisters, lovers! Oh, I
thank the Lord of heaven and earth, that He hath so woven the web of
the nations as to permit the American people to set before the ages
the grandest human illustration the world has
ever witnessed of that sublime principle which seems to pervade the
universe, and which lies as the very corner-stone of Redemption,--Vicarious Sacrifice!

4. I have been speaking of the application of this principle, life through death, to nations. Let me bring this
point still nearer home, even to these bleeding hearts of ours that as
yet refuse to be comforted. The richly kerneled and tasselled stalk
springs from the death of the solitary seed. Even so, the nation's
triumph and greatness may spring from Abraham Lincoln's death. Had he
been permitted to live till the term of his great office had expired,
and, afterwards, in a green odd age, to die amidst the tranquillities
of his Illinois home, he would still have been the glorious nobleman
that God crowned him in his birth; but he might have abided alone, fructifying into no national
harvest. We should still have revered him, as we revere all of God's
great ones; but no nation would have been born

of him. But when, beneath the sufferance of an inscrutable Providence,
the assassin's bullet laid him low, the glorious seed died, that it
might no longer abide alone, but bring forth much
fruit. Even here, in the cause of Liberty, as in the cause of the
Church, it shall be found that the blood of the martyrs is the seed of
the Republic. Take courage, then, my countrymen: for even now I see
springing from the tear-wet bier of Abraham Lincoln the green and
tender blades which foretell the birth of an emancipated, united,
triumphant, transfigured, immortal Republic. Even so, Father! For thus
it seemed good in Thy sight!